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- The M&E Dispatch // 131
The M&E Dispatch // 131
Does this mean that we no longer have an election leering awkwardly from the back corner of the room?
Lee Tengum
December 12, 2025
Hello Everyone,
Does this mean that come spring we can spend our collective energy finding easter eggs rather than searching for the local polling stations? Michael Ma's floor crossing all but ensures that a spring election is no longer in the cards for Canada, and that might signal a return of capital confidence. Carney's Major Projects Initiative might start looking like a project plan of in-progress tasks rather than a proposal of ideas.
That's the shift we're watching this morning.
Ma's defection brings the Liberals to 171 seats. Add two independent MPs on confidence votes, and the government has effectively insulated itself from the non-confidence threat that's been hanging overhead since spring. The polling numbers that spooked Bay Street for six months just became irrelevant. There won't be an election unless Carney calls one deliberately, and he has zero incentive to do that.
What Changes When Election Risk Dies
Here's what happens in markets when the threat of political instability evaporates:
Capital flows back in. Not because the fundamentals changed overnight, but because the timeline just got longer. Institutional money, pension funds, endowments, resource-sector capital allocators, moves on horizons. When the horizon is "maybe an election in 90 days," checkbooks stay closed. When it's "government stable for 2+ years," shovels hit the ground.
The TSX reflected this yesterday. Materials stocks surged 3.8%, gold majors jumped 4.2%, junior silver miners rallied hard. Was this all about Ma's floor-crossing? No. The real drivers were spot gold hitting new highs and global rate expectations shifting. But the sustainability of that move depends on policy certainty.
And policy certainty just got a whole lot more certain.
What This Means for the Carney Doctrine
The Carney-Smith MOU on Alberta? It survives. The critical minerals corridors in BC-Yukon and Northern Ontario? Permitting timelines just got more predictable. The doubling of Indigenous loan guarantees for mining projects? Capital can actually start flowing. The West Coast Pipeline Group application? Still contentious, still slow, but at least it's not happening in the shadow of an imminent election.
The "Canada Strong" budget committed serious federal capital to Projects of National Interest. Projects of National Interest need time. They need permitting consistency. They need investors to believe that the government approving them today won't be replaced by a government questioning them next fall.
That belief just became rational.
// The Dirt
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// The Hustle
For as long as I can remember, whenever I’m eating apples I’ll throw the seeds in my pocket, much to the chagrin of my parents and wife. Then when I’m out and about and spot a piece of land that would benefit from an apple tree, I empty my pocket. I’m not coming back to tend to it or anything, I just kick around a bit of top soil, drop a seed, cover it back up with gentle foot tap. Job done.
I don’t need to see it grow to know I tried. I just need to try, for me.
When things get tough and I start feeling the weight of everything piling up I think to think about all the places where I’ve dropped some seeds and wonder if I’ve been the reason an apple exists.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, there’s probably some deeper meaning to this thought that even I’m missing this morning. Maybe I’m just inspired by the small acts of charity that seem to begin flowing at this time of year, when the days are cold and dark but the somehow the holiday season seems to bring out the best in us.
Be the reason an apple exists.